A multi-layer ceramic capacitor is typically manufactured through a step of preparing a ceramic green sheet, a step of forming an internal electrode layer by printing conductive paste in a desired pattern on this ceramic green sheet, a step of making a laminated block by stacking and pressure-bonding a plurality of ceramic green sheets respectively having the internal electrode layers, a step of making unfired chips by cutting the laminated block to a prescribed size, a step of firing the unfired chips to obtain chip elements, a step of forming external electrodes by baking conductive paste applied on both end surfaces of the chip elements, and a step of plating the external electrodes with a metal such as nickel, tin, or the like.
However, in manufacturing a multi-layer ceramic capacitor in the manner described above, it is difficult to stack and pressure-bond the plurality of ceramic green sheets so that adjacent internal electrodes face each other precisely. This results in a problem of not being able to increase the capacitance of the capacitor sufficiently due to the adjacent internal electrodes on the ceramic green sheets not precisely facing each other.
To solve this problem, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2011-23707 (Patent Document 1), for example, discloses the following method of manufacturing a multi-layer ceramic capacitor: forming internal electrodes by printing conductive paste for the internal electrodes on the entire surface of a substantially rectangular ceramic green sheet except for an area near at least one side thereof; forming a laminated block by stacking a plurality of ceramic green sheets having the internal electrodes; pressure-bonding the laminated block by applying a high pressure; cutting the laminated block to a required size; forming, by coating or the like, ceramic bodies that later become portions referred to as side margins on both side surfaces of the laminated block where the internal electrodes are exposed, thereby making a ceramic green chip; and firing the ceramic green chip after performing a binder removal process.